Fret
by AmeliaGallifrey
Summary: Molly has always been a worrier. Character study. Oneshot.


Summary: Molly has always been a worrier.

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters are the property of JK Rowling.

**Fret**

She's so used to worrying.

The constant humming fear, the way her body jolts like she's been shocked by one of Arthur's precious _electricity_ cables, every time someone shouts or slams a door.

It's been that way since she was first married; baby boys cradled in her arms, one ear tuned to the whispers. _Something's stirring. Something dark is on the move._

Molly was always a fearful girl - spiders, black cats, ladders, anything - but she learned quickly to hide it, and now not even Arthur knows, or understands. She's always had nerves stretched too tight, like bedsheets pulled by the wind on a clothesline, straining at their pegs. She has always been certain she would die young; one day, one fright too many, and her heart would simply stop. Not a splutter, not a stuttering beat; it would surely just fall silent in her chest, and if they opened her up they'd see how it had grown brittle and pale and hollow from worry, light and fragile as a seashell.

The First War was a waking nightmare; the boys - her brave, infuriating brothers - fought to the end only to be slain like animals, and it nearly broke her, that loss. It broke their parents; both dead within the year, leaving her alone, last Prewett standing, except she was very much a Weasley, by then.

Percy was a sickly boy, Bill and Charlie too boisterous for their own good, always running in from the garden bruised and bloodied and grinning from their skylarking. It would take hours for her hands to steady, once she'd mopped up their wounds and the mess from their muddy feet. Then there was Arthur, beloved and so infuriatingly foolish; too good-hearted to fight on his own behalf when a promotion opened up at work, all free time spent tinkering in the shed, one or other of the boys perced on his knee. Electricity, motors, gasoline; all these Muggle fascinations with dangers hidden, it seemed, to all eyes but hers. He blew it up once, the shed, and the pain her chest was indescribable as she doubled over in the kitchen doorway as he and Bill stumbled, covered in ash and laughing, from the rubble.

The only time she was too surprised to be afraid was with the twins. Molly had always been a sturdy girl, ruddy-cheeked and strong-limbed; the very picture of country health. It felt like the twins had been battling their way out of her womb, that day she'd collapsed in the vegetable patch. Just a little tired, she'd muttered; too much housework, and Arthur had hovered over her for a week, driving her batty with his attention. They'd kept still for a while, her wild baby boys, and she'd grown huge, too tired and lumbering to spend energy on worrying. She'd been sure they were coming, one spring morning in the laundry room, and the blood had smeared beneath her like a river as she'd crawled into the kitchen to Muriel and Uncle Algie. St Mungo's was nice, really; someone else to clear up and they bring your supper right to you in bed! Arthur fretted, the kids hanging off of him like Grindylows, and she'd felt so guilty at the relief she felt when he took them home. She hadn't worried, then; left the Healers to fuss on her behalf, and besides, she was so very surprised at having taken ill. Later, Arthur said he'd never been so afraid, but the boys were born, perfectly fine, after all. She'd named them with her brothers' initials, crying all the while as she'd signed the matching birth certificates.

Even in the in-between years, as Alastor Moody called it, she was afraid. She could forget the-monster-who-cannot-be-named-or-thought-of, believing in Arthur's muttered assurances that he was long gone, now. New worries, as always, arose in the wake of war. So much danger, so much to fear, all around, and no-one to notice but she. So she did as her mother taught her; pinch the pennies, throw the salt over your shoulder, catch the devil in the eye! Stave of the fear with busy-ness, hide your shaking hands in the folds of your skirts, don't trouble your husband with it. Never dare a glance at the Prophet, just in case.

See the children off to school and try not to owl them too often; they say they'll pick up on your worry. At home with the babies, little Ronnie and tiny, premature Ginny, and it seemed like no time at all before the whispers returned. Albania, Durmstrang, the riots in Azkaban, which sent rivulets of fear through anyone old enough to remember who was imprisoned there. Still, it was quiet, except for Lucius Malfoy's bad-mouthing and Arthur, hot-headed as usual, rising to the bait. Everyone said they were safe, and she was so mad, so unfathomably furious, when Arthur told her exactly how their youngest son ended up in the hospital wing at the end of his first year. Poor Professor Quirrel, she'd thought, until Arthur had snapped and shouted. You-Know-Who doesn't get stuck to the back of your head by accident, Molly!

The world had turned on a pin, after that; she'd wanted desperately to keep Ginny at home after that diary incident. Only Dumbledore, old face inscrutible as it loomed over hers, had pleaded with her, and the next year she'd stood like a waxwork on the station, waving a handkerchief to her baby girl as the train pulled away.

She's always worried, but it is her constant companion, now. Hiding the shredded newspapers in with the chickens, pulling a bonnet over her head to conceal the way her hair has thinned. She can barely breathe now for panic looming in her breast. Sleep evades her, and when it does come, shadows and changelings and sickly, nasty things bite and snap at her heels, chasing her through her dreams so she wakes wracked and drenched and white-faced in the tiny bathroom mirror. Arthur never wakes, on the nights he is home, that is; snoring and snuffling into his pillow, oblivious, as always. He doesn't notice, because he's too busy or perhaps he wouldn't even think to look or listen, when her bedside drawer rattles with the empty bottles of Dreamless Sleep. She is quick to stuff the folded slips of parchment into her apron pockets, tucking Severus Snape's scrawling, spidery admonitions out of sight, out of mind, and besides, he still sends the potion when she asks, every time. Remus Lupin is a good, kind young man, and something in his pale eyes makes her wonder if he understands, when he sits quietly at her kitchen table. The rest of the Order she can give or take, really, and it only makes her fret more when the Aurors come tramping up her garden path. But Arthur would never think to turn away from the fight, and she's been so good at hiding her fear that she's sure he wouldn't even understand, if she asked him to.

She practices her hexes and curses on the washing as it hangs on the line, and once she even uses the Killing Curse on one of the gnomes, to make sure she can get the wandwork and the incantation right. That night is the worst, because the last bottle of Dreamless is empty, and the face of the knobbly little creature swims before her eyes, bathed in green, every time she blinks.


End file.
